Game Details

One of the quiet transitions of late in Microsoft's Xbox division, certainly overshadowed by the upcoming Xbox One, is the company's push toward free-to-play gaming. The biggest first-party examples, Happy Wars and a refreshed version of World Series Poker, haven't been all that explosive in their respective genres, but they have been leading Xbox Live download lists and giving console gamers a taste of the no-money-down revolution that's already so prevalent on PCs, tablets, and mobile devices.

Those Xbox experiments look like mere toes in the water compared to the monstrous, battle-heavy splash of Ascend: Hand of Kul. The third-person action-adventure game launched last week with a giant "beta" attached, but there's enough action and interesting "multiplayer" twists on display already to make it an interesting experiment in putting free-to-play on the Xbox pedestal.

Landing somewhere between Olympian and Tolkienesque mythology, the world of Ascend puts you in the shoes of a Caos, a stories-tall warrior who battles on behalf of his god. Which factional god he follows—today's flavors are Light, Dark, and Void—is up to you, and you receive bonuses and spell options depending on your choice. The basic goal: to traverse mountainous valleys and grimy dungeons to claim lands and shrines in your god's name.

The meat-and-potatoes battling you do as a Caos isn't far off from other 3D Diablo-likes of the past few years. You pick from swords, hammers, spears, and so on, then you battle waves of enemies by alternating between quick and strong weapon strikes and occasional blasts of magic. Defend by holding a block button, or dodge using a slightly awkward dash maneuver. As far as the genre competition is concerned, Ascend doesn't reach the swift polish of last year's Kingdoms of Amalur, but it feels solid and responsive enough to outpace something like Too Human, not too bad for a free-to-play entry.

The game tries to set itself apart with an overarching and ongoing three-faction war, based on which god each player picks. The basic Ascend experience is a solo affair, but other players' outlines are visible if they're questing in the same region, and they glow with their faction's color. When you see those outlines, you can cast a blessing or a curse that will load their games with speed/health bonuses or annoying extra baddies, respectively. You have to accept such perks and hindrances from other players in kind.

Additionally, the territories you've claimed for your god in the single-player game will sometimes be "challenged" by other players, and you're asked to set your current quest aside and defend them (you can easily ignore these challenges and simply forfeit your territory without much issue). This launches one-on-one online duels that play out with no latency issues to speak of in my testing.

Mixing up weapon combos, magic blasts, blocks, and dodges with the few evenly matched opponents I've faced so far have proven memorable. The only problem is that an evenly matched opponent is nearly impossible to find. This partly comes down to iffy matchmaking, since the fighter with a higher level or better loot will score the victory almost automatically. But the game's free-to-play economy makes no bones about one frustrating basic fact: If you pay, you will win.

Ascend's economy puts a price on just about everything. True, you can't buy weapons that are beyond your experience level, but that's a fairness fakeout, because purchasable upgrades and perks will absolutely bump your power, speed, defense, and recharge abilities insanely high for about 30 minutes at a time. Those passive multiplayer blessings and curses also cost in-game money, so if you want to wreak a ton of havoc or sow a bunch of favor, it will cost you.

To its credit, Ascend does a decent job doling out enough of the game's "soul" currency to keep players plenty capable of buying above-adequate gear and a few perks here and there, with some in-game money left in the bank. There's plenty of loot in dungeons as well, though it's usually in a worn-out state that costs souls to "repair."

The game has a few weird kinks at the moment. For one, the "ascend" mechanic asks players to retire their Caos and build a new one from scratch periodically in exchange for a higher level cap on the new warrior. Restarted warriors don't rewind in quest progress, and they default to a reasonably high level anyway, with a few perks for the restart, too. Mostly, the mechanic seems built to sneak a few more microtransactions into the game—pay enough souls and you can transfer even more of your older weapons and armor to your new Caos! Hmm...

More troubling is the ability to absolutely run past scores of enemies in the game whenever you please. If you simply dash through a crowd of baddies, they won't do much chasing. This leads to the unintentionally hilarious discovery that opening chests will make a player invulnerable to attacks, meaning you can dash through dungeons, scoop up loot, and leave pretty much unscathed. (A lack of penalty for deaths doesn't help this, either.)

As such, the "beta" tag is very operative here. Still, while the enemy variety is a little weak, the solid battling mechanics and fantastic art design make this far from a free-to-play throwaway. The game can seem a little needy with the microtransactions, but the core gameplay honestly doesn't seem like it was built with squeezing money as the primary driver (with the exception of "ascending," anyway). That means there's little reason for gamers on a budget not to dive in and get a good bit of loot-battling under their belts.

The Good

You won't need to spend a single dime for a pretty decent loot-driven battle spree

For a console Diablo-like, it's certainly better than Too Human

The Bad

Slim enemy selection

A few egregious microtransaction imbalances, especially in multiplayer

The ugly

You can run past scores of enemies with little in the way of punishment

Quirks from the game's "beta" state will make you feel dumb if you actually pay to play

27 Reader Comments

I've put in far more time into this game than I'd care to admit, (8 ascensions as of last night) and am really excited to see how they're progressing. I've already finished the main game, and end-game content is critical to keeping me want to boot up the game every day. While at first I was concerned I'd be bored, yesterday alone they modified one of the dungeons to temporarily be 10 levels deep, making the experience much more challenging. (Even doing the "run past baddies to open chests" resulted in a lot of deaths at the late levels). Still, quite a bit to iron out in the beta, but in many ways it feels like a 3rd person diablo. Some additional variety in enemies, better loot variety, and actually requiring you to kill enemies before looting dungons will lead to a great experience. With such an ambitious project like this, I expect we'll see a lot of rapid tweaks over time, but the great design of the game allows for some major changes seamlessly into the environment, stores, balance, etc without them having to push a live patch.

You get just enough souls to feel like you can continue successfully without upgrading, but they have just the right nag early on to really benefit from spending $. (Late game monitization needs a bit of tuning though, so if you buy - and I think it's worth putting in $10 early, do it in the first few levels...and use it on spells)

On the player boss fights, there's a few tricks you can use to make them almost always a piece of cake, generally surrounding spells that force knockdown coupled with high damage spells that would normally be blocked. Then, there's the void confusion - which is a bit OP right now on the player bosses.

I'd say the game is good now, the campaign is fun. But I'm really excited to see where it goes. There's so much potential I suspect I'll be picking it back up quite a lot over the next few months.

Nope, not gonna buy in. I will go back to playing board games before I buy into the "free-to-PAY" nonsense! This will KILL gaming as surely as the glut of crappy 2600 games did decades before! Not gonna do it, I dont care what the game is or how "great" it is supposed to be!

Nope, not gonna buy in. I will go back to playing board games before I buy into the "free-to-PAY" nonsense! This will KILL gaming as surely as the glut of crappy 2600 games did decades before! Not gonna do it, I dont care what the game is or how "great" it is supposed to be!

That seems like a knee jerk response. While this gametype holds no appeal for me, it seems like getting in for free, and rewarding the devs if you like it, at rates lower than the usual $60 AAA title, seems reasonable.

So far, I prefer Path of Exile's F2P model - so far, not a single piece of real-game-money-purchasable-stuff (or whatever you call it) has had even a slight impact on game balance. It's purely cosmetic. We'll see if they keep that up after full launch on 23 October.

The player bosses aren't actually players, they're the "ascended" characters of other players being controlled by AI. There's no latency because there's no other player. The official site seems to imply that later updates will add true PvP and co-op multiplayer. Still a decent way to burn a few hours, especially if you're stuck home with an Ogre Brute sized cold.

Nope, not gonna buy in. I will go back to playing board games before I buy into the "free-to-PAY" nonsense! This will KILL gaming as surely as the glut of crappy 2600 games did decades before! Not gonna do it, I dont care what the game is or how "great" it is supposed to be!

That seems like a knee jerk response. While this gametype holds no appeal for me, it seems like getting in for free, and rewarding the devs if you like it, at rates lower than the usual $60 AAA title, seems reasonable.

What makes you so opposed to it?

I have the same knee jerk reaction.

I'm opposed to the model because it often destroys game balance and immersion. For me, playing for "free" is not worth the harm caused to the game design. As soon as the developers have to consider the effect of real money on the game, pursuit of fun is compromised. Just look at the way the real money auction house affected the gameplay of Diablo 3. It's removal is a rare case of a game company choosing what's best for the game's fun, rather than their bottom line.

Some games handle it better than others, but at no point while playing a game should I be confronted with real money. Even knowing that a game is balanced with real money is enough to make me question the game design.

I would much rather pay once, to purchase a game, and never have to consider money again. I very rarely pay $60 for a game, since they drop in price pretty quickly. Steam also shows that there a huge number of excellent games available for $10 or less. There are also very many excellent indie games that are absolutely free, like Dwarf Fortress. As for trying a game for free, that's what demos are for. Ouya seems to have the right idea there.

Of course, it is easy to blame the developers and publishers for the blatant cash grabs of "free-to-play" games, but ultimately they are just meeting the demands of players. My biggest concern is that players like myself, who loathe microtransactions, are a dying breed. I worry that microtransactions will continue to infect more games, until few are left without them. That Microsoft is pushing them is a bad sign.

EDIT: Put it another way, think of your very favorite games. While playing them, have you ever thought "wow this would be so much better if I could spend real money in the game!" ? Would critically acclaimed games, such as Journey, be improved by microtransactions?

I personally don't like the free-to-play model, but nickel-and-diming in gaming instead of a $60 upfront fee isn't exactly without precedent. Video arcades anyone? And while some arcade games were lame tricks to steal your quarters, some delivered some really awesome gameplay. I see free-to-play as the 21st-century equivalent. Not all of its products are good, but I don't see why all of its products are doomed to be bad either.

EDIT: While I generally prefer purchase-up-front titles, I just remembered three "free-to-play" titles I've really, really enjoyed. Rise of Flight, Microsoft Flight (RIP), and MechWarrior Online. While not every dev implements F2P in a good way, I really think that railing against the entire concept is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I personally don't like the free-to-play model, but nickel-and-diming in gaming instead of a $60 upfront fee isn't exactly without precedent. Video arcades anyone? And while some arcade games were lame tricks to steal your quarters, some delivered some really awesome gameplay. I see free-to-play as the 21st-century equivalent. Not all of its products are good, but I don't see why all of its products are doomed to be bad either.

The comparison to arcade games isn't exactly high praise, considering the state of arcades (in the US at least). Some of those that remain have adopted payment models where you pay for a set period of time and can play an unlimited number of times during that period. Once perfect ports of arcade games became available on home consoles, it was obvious to players that paying 50 cents (or more) per play was a bad deal.

I agree that there are many great arcade games and even wish there were more arcades around. But popping in quarters (or tokens) was not a highlight of the experience.

EDIT: While I generally prefer purchase-up-front titles, I just remembered three "free-to-play" titles I've really, really enjoyed. Rise of Flight, Microsoft Flight (RIP), and MechWarrior Online. While not every dev implements F2P in a good way, I really think that railing against the entire concept is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I think the question is, would those games be somehow worse if they weren't free-to-play? Since you did really enjoy them, wouldn't they be worth paying $20 or $30 up front for?

I really enjoyed playing Battlefield Heroes for a while. I thought it would have been a really great game if only I could just buy it outright for 20 bucks. But it has some extremely blatant pay-to-win mechanics, including "renting" powerful weapons for limited time periods. It bothered me enough that I stopped playing.

I am frugal in general and don't like paying more than I have to. But "free-to-play" seems like a terrible deal to me.

I admit, I clicked on this because I thought it was somehow related to Kull of Atlantis. Since I'm here...

I don't want to play microtransaction games that include any microtransactions beyond the purely cosmetic, a la Path of Exile (which I strongly recommend to people like myself: those who love tinkering with stats and builds).

I'd rather pay $60 upfront and get what I pay for then play a free-to-play and be nickel-and-dimed. It is inherent in virtually all non-cosmetic F2P games that they are broken in some way. I realize some find this a minor price to pay for a free game and that's fine. It's just not for me. If this means that in 10 years I have nothing but my GOG collection to play, at least I'll be able to get through it all.

'F2P' + microtransaction games suck, and the P2P model ensures gameplay immersion and a genuinely rewarding experience from beating someone by click-honed skill, rather than a purchased weapon. P2P sub models have the additional bonus of not being inundated with (as much) adolescent cussing. However, the thing that sours P2P sub models is the fact that they almost inevitably crash and burn, become F2P with microtransactions and generally leave a taste of bile in the mouths of people who invested time and effort into playing the game while it had potential. So, cynical as it may sound, I'd prefer that games with absolutely no chance of maintaining a P2P model to start off as F2P, so that it attracts audiences who don't mind microtransactions in the long-term.

and unlike PC games, this model is built to nickel and dime you for pretty much anything. mobile gaming model and this console models of monetisation are a blight on the industry.

just download lotro to see how to do transactional f2p games. or EQ2. Hell even Marvel Heroes has a superb f2p model. you can play these games without forking over any cash. the cash you spend is essentially trading time.

in lotro and marvrl heroes, you spend eniugh time playing and you can access transacted content. for example, in marvel heroes each new superhero costs about $10 to unlock, however, you can collect items that drop semi regularly from any mob and that can be used to purchase the unlocks. playing normally and daily you can concievably unlock a new hero every 5 -7 days.

so far as i have played the PC gaming models still offer the best balance between actual free and paid content. this game previewed seems to follow the abominable mobile gaming model. I'm surprised you're not locked out every 30 minutes of play for the next 24 hours until you pay for the next 30 minute block.

I think there is some misunderstanding: free-to-play doesn't automatically mean pay-to-win. I have a few friends who are getting a lot of enjoyment out of League of Legends and they didn't pay a dime. Same with The Secret World and SWTOR.

I downloaded both Happy Wars and Ascend. While interesting initially, neither game really held my attention and thus, they did not receive any of my money.

To be honest, if a game is done well (ie compelling game play, not pay-to-win), then I don't see why the F2P model is bad.

The ironic thing about all this 'nickel and dime" talk is that you don't ever have to pay a thing with a F2P game.

Nope, not gonna buy in. I will go back to playing board games before I buy into the "free-to-PAY" nonsense! This will KILL gaming as surely as the glut of crappy 2600 games did decades before! Not gonna do it, I dont care what the game is or how "great" it is supposed to be!

That seems like a knee jerk response. While this gametype holds no appeal for me, it seems like getting in for free, and rewarding the devs if you like it, at rates lower than the usual $60 AAA title, seems reasonable.

What makes you so opposed to it?

I have the same knee jerk reaction.

I'm opposed to the model because it often destroys game balance and immersion. For me, playing for "free" is not worth the harm caused to the game design. As soon as the developers have to consider the effect of real money on the game, pursuit of fun is compromised. Just look at the way the real money auction house affected the gameplay of Diablo 3. It's removal is a rare case of a game company choosing what's best for the game's fun, rather than their bottom line.

Some games handle it better than others, but at no point while playing a game should I be confronted with real money. Even knowing that a game is balanced with real money is enough to make me question the game design.

I would much rather pay once, to purchase a game, and never have to consider money again. I very rarely pay $60 for a game, since they drop in price pretty quickly. Steam also shows that there a huge number of excellent games available for $10 or less. There are also very many excellent indie games that are absolutely free, like Dwarf Fortress. As for trying a game for free, that's what demos are for. Ouya seems to have the right idea there.

Of course, it is easy to blame the developers and publishers for the blatant cash grabs of "free-to-play" games, but ultimately they are just meeting the demands of players. My biggest concern is that players like myself, who loathe microtransactions, are a dying breed. I worry that microtransactions will continue to infect more games, until few are left without them. That Microsoft is pushing them is a bad sign.

EDIT: Put it another way, think of your very favorite games. While playing them, have you ever thought "wow this would be so much better if I could spend real money in the game!" ? Would critically acclaimed games, such as Journey, be improved by microtransactions?

Thanks for that response, that makes a lot of sense, and you're absolutely right. That reminds me of the WhatsApp devs stance on getting paid by consumers vs advertisers: "no one ever wakes up and says gee I can't wait to see some ads today."

I think there is some misunderstanding: free-to-play doesn't automatically mean pay-to-win. I have a few friends who are getting a lot of enjoyment out of League of Legends and they didn't pay a dime. Same with The Secret World and SWTOR.

I downloaded both Happy Wars and Ascend. While interesting initially, neither game really held my attention and thus, they did not receive any of my money.

To be honest, if a game is done well (ie compelling game play, not pay-to-win), then I don't see why the F2P model is bad.

The ironic thing about all this 'nickel and dime" talk is that you don't ever have to pay a thing with a F2P game.

There is room for both free-to-play and pay once for unlimited play; it's not an either-or. I'm sure lots of people like free-to-play, and welcome to it. But nonetheless, I agree with Zomboe, because with the way the game industry works, and the way people work (fads), if the game industry finds this model more profitable, there will probably be a stampede in this direction, and pay-up-front games may become a dying breed. And that wouldn't be good.

I think there is some misunderstanding: free-to-play doesn't automatically mean pay-to-win. I have a few friends who are getting a lot of enjoyment out of League of Legends and they didn't pay a dime. Same with The Secret World and SWTOR.

I downloaded both Happy Wars and Ascend. While interesting initially, neither game really held my attention and thus, they did not receive any of my money.

To be honest, if a game is done well (ie compelling game play, not pay-to-win), then I don't see why the F2P model is bad.

The ironic thing about all this 'nickel and dime" talk is that you don't ever have to pay a thing with a F2P game.

There is room for both free-to-play and pay once for unlimited play; it's not an either-or. I'm sure lots of people like free-to-play, and welcome to it. But nonetheless, I agree with Zomboe, because with the way the game industry works, and the way people work (fads), if the game industry finds this model more profitable, there will probably be a stampede in this direction, and pay-up-front games may become a dying breed. And that wouldn't be good.

A couple weeks ago, GTA V had the best first-day sales of any game in history; it had $800 million in sales in one day. I don't think pay-up-front gaming is dying just because F2P is also becoming a common format.

I think there is some misunderstanding: free-to-play doesn't automatically mean pay-to-win. I have a few friends who are getting a lot of enjoyment out of League of Legends and they didn't pay a dime. Same with The Secret World and SWTOR.

I downloaded both Happy Wars and Ascend. While interesting initially, neither game really held my attention and thus, they did not receive any of my money.

To be honest, if a game is done well (ie compelling game play, not pay-to-win), then I don't see why the F2P model is bad.

The ironic thing about all this 'nickel and dime" talk is that you don't ever have to pay a thing with a F2P game.

There is room for both free-to-play and pay once for unlimited play; it's not an either-or. I'm sure lots of people like free-to-play, and welcome to it. But nonetheless, I agree with Zomboe, because with the way the game industry works, and the way people work (fads), if the game industry finds this model more profitable, there will probably be a stampede in this direction, and pay-up-front games may become a dying breed. And that wouldn't be good.

A couple weeks ago, GTA V had the best first-day sales of any game in history; it had $800 million in sales in one day. I don't think pay-up-front gaming is dying just because F2P is also becoming a common format.

I certainly hope you are right. But part of that might have been the fact that the things you would buy in that game would look a lot more like Silk Road merchandise and murder-for-hire, which probably wouldn't go down too well with the mainstream media.

I think there is some misunderstanding: free-to-play doesn't automatically mean pay-to-win. I have a few friends who are getting a lot of enjoyment out of League of Legends and they didn't pay a dime. Same with The Secret World and SWTOR.

I downloaded both Happy Wars and Ascend. While interesting initially, neither game really held my attention and thus, they did not receive any of my money.

To be honest, if a game is done well (ie compelling game play, not pay-to-win), then I don't see why the F2P model is bad.

The ironic thing about all this 'nickel and dime" talk is that you don't ever have to pay a thing with a F2P game.

There is room for both free-to-play and pay once for unlimited play; it's not an either-or. I'm sure lots of people like free-to-play, and welcome to it. But nonetheless, I agree with Zomboe, because with the way the game industry works, and the way people work (fads), if the game industry finds this model more profitable, there will probably be a stampede in this direction, and pay-up-front games may become a dying breed. And that wouldn't be good.

A couple weeks ago, GTA V had the best first-day sales of any game in history; it had $800 million in sales in one day. I don't think pay-up-front gaming is dying just because F2P is also becoming a common format.

Which makes it all the more ironic and shameful that GTA V Online features microtransactions! Ars just recently reported on it.

Free to play with microtransactions is bad; $60 up front, and then microtransactions on top is horrible. When a game as profitable and popular as GTA V gets away with adding microtransactions, you can be sure everyone else will follow. That is the biggest cause for concern. Ascend: Hand of Kul is benign in comparison.

Which makes it all the more ironic and shameful that GTA V Online features microtransactions! Ars just recently reported on it.

Free to play with microtransactions is bad; $60 up front, and then microtransactions on top is horrible. When a game as profitable and popular as GTA V gets away with adding microtransactions, you can be sure everyone else will follow. That is the biggest cause for concern. Ascend: Hand of Kul is benign in comparison.

I agree 100%. I was really upset to discover that Mass Effect 3 had microtransactions even after I paid $60 for the game and another dozen or so dollars on DLC. Sure, the microtransactions weren't necessary, and you COULD grind for dozens and dozens of hours to unlock weapons and characters in multiplayer, but the grind was SO long and the microtransaction model was SO obvious that there was constant pressure to use them. It broke the multiplayer for me--which is a shame, because it was otherwise a total hoot.

Well, since I play games for their story, I doubt F2P games will ever give me any kind of fun. The escapist pleasure of getting points and shiny stuff to replace the cold cruel reality we live in may be luring somewhat, but I'll let the kids have their fun without me.Only problem with this kind of games are the publishers who will push game devs to shove in microtransactions to anything( mass effect 3,dead space 3) , but the rise of kickstarter multimillion dollar campaigns seems to negate that somewhat, for me at least.

Considering that most of these games I play for about 5 minutes before uninstalling because I'm not paying just so I can continue playing (or acquire a critical game mechanic like the only way to heal my character), I conclude that "fun minutes" means "less than 15".

So even crappy reality show contestants get more time in the spotlight than pay-to-win drivel.

I'm closing in on my 6th Ascension, and I haven't payed a nickel. $10 gets you 70,000 Souls, and I've currently got 25k Souls after having just bought a 40k spell, one of the most powerful and expensive ones (Black Hole). You don't have to pay a cent. Once you hit level 15 or so, the Souls you get just playing the game are fine for keeping your equipment repaired and buying new stuff. The ratio of "loot to sell" to "hot DAMN that's a killer piece of kit I'm gonna keep it!" is on par with Diablo III or Borderlands 2 -- most of what you find you sell, with the occasional "free" upgrade of your armor/helmet/weapon/etc.

The problem with the early levels is Repairing. Your gear gets damaged when you take damage (weapons degrade as you beat things to death), so in the beginning most of your cash is just used to keep your gear together. But the damage you and your gear takes is tied to your Armor rating, so the better your AR the less your equipment degrades and the less you need to repair it. Yes, better kit costs more to repair, but by that time you're getting more valuable loot to sell so the Souls coming in rapidly outpace the maintenance costs.

This game isn't "pay to win". There is a clear and up-front incentive to buy things with real-world cash, granted, but its not the type of game that cripples you for not taking it. There's never a "need" to pay. By the time you "need" better gear due to higher-level enemies, you're getting better gear in the loot chests.

No disrespect, but not even trying a free game because the concept of microtransactions exist is just silly. It's a darn fun game, probably an easy dozen hours just for the "main" story, and (again) its free.

Been mentioned before, but if you do try it out spend souls on upgrading spells before all else. When you Ascend all your spells carry over (including upgrades), whereas you only get one free equipment carryover*, and spells don't degrade, so upgraded spells last forever.

*each time you Ascend, you can make 1 piece of kit a "Legacy" item for free -- making more than 1 Legacy item at a time costs on an ascending scale (2nd piece = 1,000, 3rd = 2,000, 4th = 4,000, etc.). All Legacy items carry over forever, so if you Ascend at lvl 5 and Legacy your boots, when you Ascend again at lvl 10 you can Legacy your helmet and carry over BOTH your helmet and boots. Your kit is helmet, gauntlets, armor, boots, and weapon -- so even if you wanted to carry over everything it would cost you 15,000 total . . . and by the time you actually have gear good enough to merit a total Legacy spread like that getting 15k souls will take about an hour of killing monsters . . . which you were going to do anyway, right?

Not that the last comment wasn't lengthy enough, but let me add to it . . .

The desire to buy souls comes from saving up for an awesome hammer then being torn between getting the hammer or buying a new helmet that just hit the market. Or saving up 15k for a hammer and then having to spend 4k to keep your kit in top shape, delaying your hammer purchase.

If there was no microtransaction mechanism, this would be absolutely fine. It makes souls valuable. Do you risk losing your shoes to get a better helmet now? Do you jack your weapon, armor, or spell? Decisions, decisions. It adds a layer of strategy. Any other game of this genre does something similar.

So what is the problem? Its essentially a single-player game, so if you want to buy every piece of kit you see go ahead -- doesn't impact my game. Just don't buy the currency and play it normally.

Ok this was my experience with the game. It was ok for about a week. Story was almost non existing from the start though, but I held in for a while hoping that when more content came out the game would get better. I never finished waiting though. I gat every achievement except for transcending. Because after you transcend all the souls you buy with you real money get taken away from you. To me that is like stealing. They say it's to so everyone has a lvl playing field. Well I've played a lot of free to play games and never seen any crap like that before. That's like going to the store and buying a game then they come back and say well you can't keep it anymore because the other customers can't afford to buy that game and it wouldn't be fair to them. So I found out they did that and I stopped playing, I just wanted to support them because I thought the game was going to get better with all the plans they had for it or I wouldn't have even bothered buying anything you don't really need to anyway. So many problems with the servers they couldn't even get the Halloween event to work, there are probably still monsters running around with pumpkins on there heads now, that's all of it they ever got going. I don't see how it could have got a 5 star rating on Xbox live with hardly any content, that makes no sense at all. You can play through the story line in a day if you wanted to. Then it's just grind, grind, and grind some more until they come out with more content that never seems to come. And when it does like the pvp and more of the area opening up you now your going to have to pay for some of it at some point. They just aren't making enough cash to do anything with the game, probably whey the content is coming so slowly. They say they had over a million players. There's no way even 500 people where playing that at the same time or you would see people all over the place. Worst of all the game froze up my console up so much it has it all messed up. Now all my games are doing it, once it dies I'm done with Microsoft between this crap, windows8 freezing and windows 8.1 making peoples computers almost useless and they are still trying to push that off on people. I'm really fed up with it all.